There is Light

Winner of the grand prize at this year’s Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival, this is the story of Saori, a young working girl who takes a new gig visiting and pleasuring disabled customers in the suburbs of Tokyo. Employing a number of genuinely disabled actors, the film attempts – in its early stages at least – to infuse the drama with social commentary, shining a light on Japan’s anti-disability culture and the thousands of people forced to live as recluses because society has shunned them. The film also indulges some of the more salacious aspects of its story, and the casting of bikini model Maya Koizumi in the lead role is put to good use, but in its later stages the plot unwisely takes a turn towards the melodramatic, shying away from the more uncompromising narrative with which it opens.